Lions withdraw proposal to change NFL playoff seeding

EAGAN, Minn. – The Detroit Lions withdrew their proposal to reseed the NFL playoffs just before league meetings resumed Wednesday.

In an effort to keep late-season games more competitive, the Lions proposed a bylaw that would only guarantee the division winner in each conference with the best record a home playoff game. The rest of the playoff field would have been seeded strictly by record.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, a member of the competition committee, wasn’t in favor of the re-seeding proposal when it was first discussed at the April league meetings in Palm Beach.

“I’m a division purist to be quite honest with you,” he said. “I love the rivalries that are division play. I love the structure of our scheduling that highlights it. I just categorized myself as a division purist. I think the division-winner should get a home playoff game.”

Though there’s a desire among NFL executives to make late-season games more exciting and incentivize teams to play their starters in Week 18, there wasn’t enough support from league owners to approve Detroit’s proposal, so the Lions withdrew it before a formal vote. It could be revisited in the future, especially as the NFL pushes to expand to an 18-game schedule.